


Heart's Desire

by ieras (orphan_account)



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 18:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11742915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ieras
Summary: Sandra tells a tale. Or tries. It's very cute.





	Heart's Desire

Legends once told of a spirit who could grant the wish of any that found her. Two wishes, to be exact. Yes, that is as cliche as it sounds, do not question the narrator. And don’t laugh, lovely Reader, I am telling a tale for once here.

Now, many found this spirit. Many, many fools, hardly worth her time. On and on and on for millenia these idiots demanded of her their selfish desires. Wealth, pleasurable company, palaces, a unicorn once even. That one was random.

Then one day a Reader came along and professed they would save their friends from the Downside. They were no fool—usually.

When the spirit bellowed, “What are your three wishes, dear Reader?” they simply said they wanted company. For now. No wishes, only conversation.

The spirit was lonely, for it had been some time since one of her charges considered her for the person she once was. So she agreed.

Oh how they talked about trivial things. The Reader wanted no information on how to save themselves or their friends from their fate, merely a companion to pass the days. The spirit was confused. She tried to distance herself, at first, thinking it a trick of some kind. But the suns set and the moons traveled across the sky without the Reader revealing sinister motives.

“Surely there’s something you want, lovely Reader?” the spirit asked one night as they lay next to one another, looking up at the stars. It was romantic, almost disgustingly so.

“You’re expecting me to say money or luxury or freedom, right?”

“Those are most common options, yes. Do they hold no interest for you?” The spirit asked, and her curiosity was, for once, genuine and not prompted out of boredom.

“I once had knowledge, a lot of it. An entire library’s worth, but to what end?” Reader sighed. “It was all burned anyway.”

“Nothing is eternal. Well, except for me.” The spirit laughed, though she hated this fact as much as the irony delighted her.

“Can you free my friends?”

Ah. So there was something after all. “Is that your heart’s desire?”

The Reader nodded. “They deserve better than this place.”

“What about you?”

“I’m not sure I would return to the world they will build, or to struggle to recreate what I lost. I’m tired, lovely spirit.”

The turn of her own phrase against her made her blush, if spirits can do that. Well even if they can’t, this spirit can. She took the Reader’s hand. “So you desire, so it shall be.”

But though the Reader stayed and their friends returned to reshape the world, the spirit grew angry and ill at ease.

See she realized the Reader, like all beings in her life, was temporary. Soon the last wish would be asked and that would be it. Back to an eternity of silence, perhaps longer than usual now that the Downside had been liberated.

Of course her tension was noted. The Reader was ever so sharp, they never missed a detail or a subtle emotion, and the spirit’s were far from subtle.

“What troubles you?” the Reader asked.

The spirit scoffed. “Do not pretend to care about me, dear one. Unless you feel like naming your final desire, leave.”

Whenever the spirit spoke thus, the Reader backed into the corner of their blackwagon and obeyed. Over and over and over.

Finally after days of this, the spirit yelled, “Why do you delay? Do you mean to torment me? Laugh when you make me give a final wish for youth or longevity or a damn library after so long? I know you well enough by now, lovely Reader. You do have a second wish. Perhaps you always have.”

The Reader never wavered. If the spirit could still see she knew they were staring at her in earnest. “I do.”

“Then name it and be done with me.” The spirit’s voice trembled at this, a foolish weakness to show, but she couldn’t help her heart crying for the exact opposite. Stay, it cried. Stay. It also said to stop getting into such predicaments, but that was out of desperation.

Readers can do more than read text. They can read minds as well, but the spirit thought herself immune. Perhaps that was why she was shocked when their hand gently curled around hers. “I want to be with you. Forever.”

“But that would trap you in my curse.”

The Reader’s smile danced across their words. “Would that be so bad?”

How to reply to that? If spirits weren’t corporeal, why was her pulse quickening? Foolish human brain. “Eternity is too abstract a concept for a mortal to grasp, even one as beautiful as you.” The spirit frowned. “You will tire of me. Or I you.”

“Then we’ll part until you say otherwise. Or we’ll talk it through. Or we’ll figure it out, I’m not sure.” The Reader’s grip on her hand tightened, and the spirit found herself clasping the Reader’s with equal eagerness.

“Is that your heart’s desire?” she asked.

“Is it yours?” the Reader replied.

The spirit grinned and nodded, leaning closer and closer to the Reader until she could feel their lips all but brush against hers.

“So you desire,” they whispered, “so it shall be.” And kissed her as the magic flung both of them into the void of eternity.

* * *

“We need to work on your endings.”

Sandra scoffed. “You signed up for an endless story, my beloved Reader. That kiss was merely the beginning.”

“Such a poetic sentiment, I’m impressed.”

“A few centuries with you? I might have picked up a few things.” She planted a kiss on the Reader’s cheek. “And now it’s your turn to weave another of your vibrant tapestries. Do be creative, it will be tough to compete with my tale.”

The two smiled and stared at the moon rising, heads against one another as they rested shoulder to shoulder.


End file.
